Hostile Dimensions
Written and Directed by Graham Hughes
Starring Joma West, Annabel Logan, Paddy Kondracki, Josie Rogers
Unrated
Runtine: 77 minutes
In theaters and on digital platforms August 23

by Cleo Tunningley, Staff Writer

Graham Hughes’ found footage flick Hostile Dimensions finds inspiration in the dark and menacing, yet ultimately playful, corners of the internet where creepypastas flourish. Reddit, YouTube and 4Chan are all name-dropped. There is an early scene that features an empty, bear-themed children’s play place with its own murderous mascot, à la Five Nights at Freddy’s. Characters are often filming screens, or filming each other staring into screens. Like rising auteur Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, this film delights in exploring the pleasures and pitfalls of obsessive late-night scrolling.

In a tense prologue, Hughes introduces the film’s main conceit: a freestanding, gleaming white doorway that leads to other dimensions. We follow a graffiti artist named Emily (Josie Rogers) and Brian (Stephen Beavis), the man filming her–this is a found footage movie, after all–as they trek through an abandoned building and happen upon this gateway to alternate realities.

You know what happens next. They split up. Emily disappears. Brian searches everywhere and can’t find her. He cautiously peers into the doorway. Looking back at him is a monster straight out of a YouTube video called “scariest jump scare ever don’t watch alone.” Cut to black.

From there, the film follows two faltering documentary filmmakers, Ash Shah (Joma West) and Sam Shields (Annabel Logan), as they investigate Emily’s disappearance. Ash’s last documentary didn’t perform well. The pair are hoping that a sensationalist true crime doc will draw in more viewers. It isn’t long before they’ve interviewed a traumatized Brian, tracked down the door and dragged it into Ash’s flat.

They then recruit Innis (Paddy Kondracki), an enthusiastic professor who seemingly specializes in Creepypasta Studies, to join them in their search for Emily. He’s that classic horror film archetype, a wholesome nerd who just so happens to know everything about the mysterious paranormal phenomenon at the center of the plot.

Hostile Dimensions excels when these characters are allowed to goof around in various dimensions, stumbling across striking and surreal images: flying humpback whales, yellow balloons invading a serene jungle, a talking dog who may also be God. These brief flashes of the impossible make up the film’s most memorable scenes. Here, the low budget is an asset. The CGI is as charming as it is uncanny, filtered through digital blur and pre-2000s camcorder grain. It’s all the better for paying homage to the DIY aesthetic associated with creepypastas.

Directors working today know that The Smartphone is their main competitor. More and more moviegoers inexplicably feel comfortable pulling out their phones in theaters. Watching at home on the couch, it’s even easier for folks to pull out their phones the second a movie loses their interest. It’s a content-eat-content world. To its credit, Hostile Dimensions passes by as easily as a stream of TikToks. Its already-brief runtime is split up into chapters that barely crack ten minutes each. Hughes seems acutely aware that people’s attention spans are shorter than ever.

Unfortunately, Hostile Dimensions is much less compelling when it tries to tackle themes of grief and loss. When Sam spots her deceased mother on the other side of the doorway early on in the film, it is immediately clear that she is Chekhov’s Grief. Will Sam be able to come to terms with her loss? Or will she go mad chasing after a multi-dimensional mother? Stay tuned to find out! But don’t expect the Freudian hysteria of an Ari Aster flick or even the stoner-brained pop psychology of a Rick and Morty episode. Hostile Dimensions does not have much to say about coping with death beyond, “It’s really sad when your mum dies.”

Its attempts to tug on one’s heartstrings frankly don’t work. They feel out of place in a film otherwise content to be the cinematic equivalent of fucking around on the internet. It doesn’t help that the third act introduces a boatload of lore that unconvincingly tries to tip the film into the realm of cosmic horror and, of course, to set up a sequel. Hostile Dimensions works best when it forgets the story it’s trying to tell and instead operates on the nightmare logic of a web-addicted middle schooler.